Some excerpts of this infographic:
On 10/31/2016,
in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Agents / LLMs / and Related, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), business, consortiums, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, innovation, intelligent systems, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, political science, robotics, science, society, vendors, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
We are hopefully creating the future that we want — i.e., creating the future of our dreams, not nightmares. The 14 items below show that technology is often waaay out ahead of us…and it takes time for other areas of society to catch up (such as areas that involve making policies, laws, and/or if we should even be doing these things in the first place).
Such reflections always make me ask:
- Who should be involved in some of these decisions?
- Who is currently getting asked to the decision-making tables for such discussions?
- How does the average citizen participate in such discussions?
Readers of this blog know that I’m generally pro-technology. But with the exponential pace of technological change, we need to slow things down enough to make wise decisions.
Google AI invents its own cryptographic algorithm; no one knows how it works — from arstechnica.co.uk by Sebastian Anthony
Neural networks seem good at devising crypto methods; less good at codebreaking.
Excerpt:
Google Brain has created two artificial intelligences that evolved their own cryptographic algorithm to protect their messages from a third AI, which was trying to evolve its own method to crack the AI-generated crypto. The study was a success: the first two AIs learnt how to communicate securely from scratch.
IoT growing faster than the ability to defend it — from scientificamerican.com by Larry Greenemeier
Last week’s use of connected gadgets to attack the Web is a wake-up call for the Internet of Things, which will get a whole lot bigger this holiday season
Excerpt:
With this year’s approaching holiday gift season the rapidly growing “Internet of Things” or IoT—which was exploited to help shut down parts of the Web this past Friday—is about to get a lot bigger, and fast. Christmas and Hanukkah wish lists are sure to be filled with smartwatches, fitness trackers, home-monitoring cameras and other wi-fi–connected gadgets that connect to the internet to upload photos, videos and workout details to the cloud. Unfortunately these devices are also vulnerable to viruses and other malicious software (malware) that can be used to turn them into virtual weapons without their owners’ consent or knowledge.
Last week’s distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks—in which tens of millions of hacked devices were exploited to jam and take down internet computer servers—is an ominous sign for the Internet of Things. A DDoS is a cyber attack in which large numbers of devices are programmed to request access to the same Web site at the same time, creating data traffic bottlenecks that cut off access to the site. In this case the still-unknown attackers used malware known as “Mirai” to hack into devices whose passwords they could guess, because the owners either could not or did not change the devices’ default passwords.
How to Get Lost in Augmented Reality — from inverse.com by Tanya Basu; with thanks to Woontack Woo for this resource
There are no laws against projecting misinformation. That’s good news for pranksters, criminals, and advertisers.
Excerpt:
Augmented reality offers designers and engineers new tools and artists and new palette, but there’s a dark side to reality-plus. Because A.R. technologies will eventually allow individuals to add flourishes to the environments of others, they will also facilitate the creation of a new type of misinformation and unwanted interactions. There will be advertising (there is always advertising) and there will also be lies perpetrated with optical trickery.
Two computer scientists-turned-ethicists are seriously considering the problematic ramifications of a technology that allows for real-world pop-ups: Keith Miller at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Bo Brinkman at Miami University in Ohio. Both men are dismissive of Pokémon Go because smartphones are actually behind the times when it comes to A.R.
…
A very important question is who controls these augmentations,” Miller says. “It’s a huge responsibility to take over someone’s world — you could manipulate people. You could nudge them.”
Can we build AI without losing control over it? — from ted.com by Sam Harris
Description:
Scared of superintelligent AI? You should be, says neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris — and not just in some theoretical way. We’re going to build superhuman machines, says Harris, but we haven’t yet grappled with the problems associated with creating something that may treat us the way we treat ants.
Do no harm, don’t discriminate: official guidance issued on robot ethics — from theguardian.com
Robot deception, addiction and possibility of AIs exceeding their remits noted as hazards that manufacturers should consider
Excerpt:
Isaac Asimov gave us the basic rules of good robot behaviour: don’t harm humans, obey orders and protect yourself. Now the British Standards Institute has issued a more official version aimed at helping designers create ethically sound robots.
The document, BS8611 Robots and robotic devices, is written in the dry language of a health and safety manual, but the undesirable scenarios it highlights could be taken directly from fiction. Robot deception, robot addiction and the possibility of self-learning systems exceeding their remits are all noted as hazards that manufacturers should consider.
World’s first baby born with new “3 parent” technique — from newscientist.com by Jessica Hamzelou
Excerpt:
It’s a boy! A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people, New Scientist can reveal. “This is great news and a huge deal,” says Dusko Ilic at King’s College London, who wasn’t involved in the work. “It’s revolutionary.”
The controversial technique, which allows parents with rare genetic mutations to have healthy babies, has only been legally approved in the UK. But the birth of the child, whose Jordanian parents were treated by a US-based team in Mexico, should fast-forward progress around the world, say embryologists.
Scientists Grow Full-Sized, Beating Human Hearts From Stem Cells — from popsci.com by Alexandra Ossola
It’s the closest we’ve come to growing transplantable hearts in the lab
Excerpt:
Of the 4,000 Americans waiting for heart transplants, only 2,500 will receive new hearts in the next year. Even for those lucky enough to get a transplant, the biggest risk is the their bodies will reject the new heart and launch a massive immune reaction against the foreign cells. To combat the problems of organ shortage and decrease the chance that a patient’s body will reject it, researchers have been working to create synthetic organs from patients’ own cells. Now a team of scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School has gotten one step closer, using adult skin cells to regenerate functional human heart tissue, according to a study published recently in the journal Circulation Research.
Achieving trust through data ethics — from sloanreview.mit.edu
Success in the digital age requires a new kind of diligence in how companies gather and use data.
Excerpt:
A few months ago, Danish researchers used data-scraping software to collect the personal information of nearly 70,000 users of a major online dating site as part of a study they were conducting. The researchers then published their results on an open scientific forum. Their report included the usernames, political leanings, drug usage, and other intimate details of each account.
A firestorm ensued. Although the data gathered and subsequently released was already publicly available, many questioned whether collecting, bundling, and broadcasting the data crossed serious ethical and legal boundaries.
In today’s digital age, data is the primary form of currency. Simply put: Data equals information equals insights equals power.
Technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate — along with data creation and collection. But where should the line be drawn? Where do basic principles come into play to consider the potential harm from data’s use?
“Data Science Ethics” course — from the University of Michigan on edX.org
Learn how to think through the ethics surrounding privacy, data sharing, and algorithmic decision-making.
About this course
As patients, we care about the privacy of our medical record; but as patients, we also wish to benefit from the analysis of data in medical records. As citizens, we want a fair trial before being punished for a crime; but as citizens, we want to stop terrorists before they attack us. As decision-makers, we value the advice we get from data-driven algorithms; but as decision-makers, we also worry about unintended bias. Many data scientists learn the tools of the trade and get down to work right away, without appreciating the possible consequences of their work.
This course focused on ethics specifically related to data science will provide you with the framework to analyze these concerns. This framework is based on ethics, which are shared values that help differentiate right from wrong. Ethics are not law, but they are usually the basis for laws.
Everyone, including data scientists, will benefit from this course. No previous knowledge is needed.
Science, Technology, and the Future of Warfare — from mwi.usma.edu by Margaret Kosal
Excerpt:
We know that emerging innovations within cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) areas carry the potential to revolutionize governmental structures, economies, and life as we know it. Yet, others have argued that such technologies could yield doomsday scenarios and that military applications of such technologies have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power. These S&T areas include robotics and autonomous unmanned system; artificial intelligence; biotechnology, including synthetic and systems biology; the cognitive neurosciences; nanotechnology, including stealth meta-materials; additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing); and the intersection of each with information and computing technologies, i.e., cyber-everything. These concepts and the underlying strategic importance were articulated at the multi-national level in NATO’s May 2010 New Strategic Concept paper: “Less predictable is the possibility that research breakthroughs will transform the technological battlefield…. The most destructive periods of history tend to be those when the means of aggression have gained the upper hand in the art of waging war.”
Low-Cost Gene Editing Could Breed a New Form of Bioterrorism — from bigthink.com by Philip Perry
Excerpt:
2012 saw the advent of gene editing technique CRISPR-Cas9. Now, just a few short years later, gene editing is becoming accessible to more of the world than its scientific institutions. This new technique is now being used in public health projects, to undermine the ability of certain mosquitoes to transmit disease, such as the Zika virus. But that initiative has had many in the field wondering whether it could be used for the opposite purpose, with malicious intent.
Back in February, U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper put out a Worldwide Threat Assessment, to alert the intelligence community of the potential risks posed by gene editing. The technology, which holds incredible promise for agriculture and medicine, was added to the list of weapons of mass destruction.
It is thought that amateur terrorists, non-state actors such as ISIS, or rouge states such as North Korea, could get their hands on it, and use this technology to create a bioweapon such as the earth has never seen, causing wanton destruction and chaos without any way to mitigate it.
What would happen if gene editing fell into the wrong hands?
Robot nurses will make shortages obsolete — from thedailybeast.com by Joelle Renstrom
By 2022, one million nurse jobs will be unfilled—leaving patients with lower quality care and longer waits. But what if robots could do the job?
Excerpt:
Japan is ahead of the curve when it comes to this trend, given that its elderly population is the highest of any country. Toyohashi University of Technology has developed Terapio, a robotic medical cart that can make hospital rounds, deliver medications and other items, and retrieve records. It follows a specific individual, such as a doctor or nurse, who can use it to record and access patient data. Terapio isn’t humanoid, but it does have expressive eyes that change shape and make it seem responsive. This type of robot will likely be one of the first to be implemented in hospitals because it has fairly minimal patient contact, works with staff, and has a benign appearance.
Established to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.
GOALS
Support Best Practices
To support research and recommend best practices in areas including ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency and interoperability; privacy; collaboration between people and AI systems; and of the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology.
Create an Open Platform for Discussion and Engagement
To provide a regular, structured platform for AI researchers and key stakeholders to communicate directly and openly with each other about relevant issues.
Advance Understanding
To advance public understanding and awareness of AI and its potential benefits and potential costs to act as a trusted and expert point of contact as questions/concerns arise from the public and others in the area of AI and to regularly update key constituents on the current state of AI progress.
IBM Watson’s latest gig: Improving cancer treatment with genomic sequencing — from techrepublic.com by Alison DeNisco
A new partnership between IBM Watson Health and Quest Diagnostics will combine Watson’s cognitive computing with genetic tumor sequencing for more precise, individualized cancer care.
Addendum on 11/1/16:
An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI — from wired.com by Gerd Leonhard
In a world where machines may have an IQ of 50,000, what will happen to the values and ethics that underpin privacy and free will?
Excerpt:
Dear Francesca, Eric, Mustafa, Yann, Ralf, Demis and others at IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon.
The Partnership on AI to benefit people and society is a welcome change from the usual celebration of disruption and magic technological progress. I hope it will also usher in a more holistic discussion about the global ethics of the digital age. Your announcement also coincides with the launch of my book Technology vs. Humanity which dramatises this very same question: How will technology stay beneficial to society?
This open letter is my modest contribution to the unfolding of this new partnership. Data is the new oil – which now makes your companies the most powerful entities on the globe, way beyond oil companies and banks. The rise of ‘AI everywhere’ is certain to only accelerate this trend. Yet unlike the giants of the fossil-fuel era, there is little oversight on what exactly you can and will do with this new data-oil, and what rules you’ll need to follow once you have built that AI-in-the-sky. There appears to be very little public stewardship, while accepting responsibility for the consequences of your inventions is rather slow in surfacing.
On 04/05/2016,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business, career development, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, distance education, elearning, experimentation, future of higher education, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, microlearning, new business models, online learning, platforms, professional development, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, United States, universities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
- Will more institutions of higher education be joining/contributing courses to this type of University Learning Store? I’ve often wondered about the place of consortia in higher ed…perhaps this will be one of the ways that institutions pool their resources. (i.e., creating and contributing content, tapping into content that’s been aggregated)
. - How will corporate training / L&D groups view his sort of development? Will it be helpful to them?
. - Will the University Learning Store, like Lynda.com, continually expand the list of topics that they are offering/addressing?
.
- Will these types of efforts morph into what I’ve been calling Learning from the Living [Class] Room? (i.e., learning on demand across a lifetime; employing web-based learner profiles, cognitive computing, social networking/learning while offering the ability to instantly form or join communities of practice) Another way of asking this question is this: “As technology-enabled collaborations increase what’s possible, what’s to keep courses from being ported to tvOS-based apps for on demand learning?”
For example, fast forward a few years from the technologies found in “The Video Call Center” and one could imagine some powerful means of collaborating from one’s living room:
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
Also see:
Micro-credentials offer universities an opportunity to bridge skill gaps — from centerdigitaled.com by Tanya Roscorla
By working with employers, universities can help students of all ages learn skills that industry leaders need.
Excerpt:
Higher education leaders are pondering how to make bite-sized, low-cost learning opportunities available to students in different ways.
Working adults who change jobs and careers frequently often don’t need to go through an entire degree program to learn different skills. However, they do need a flexible way to earn credentials that are recognized by employers and that demonstrate their ability to apply the skills they learn, said David Schejbal, dean of continuing education, outreach and e-learning at University of Wisconsin-Extension. University micro-credentials can help fill that role.
Six universities have been working with employers to find out what skills they need their employees to have, including the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California Davis Extension, University of California Irvine Extension, University of Wisconsin-Extension, University of Washington and University of California, Los Angeles.
As a result of collaborating with industry, these universities created short courses and certification programs for the University Learning Store that launched last week. These courses fall into three categories: power skills, technical skills and career advancement skills. Power skills used to be called “soft skills” and include communication, collaboration and critical thinking.
On 12/03/2015,
in consortiums, distance education, legislatures / government / legal, online learning, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Here’s how Maine students will have access to courses at 500 colleges — from bangordailynews.com by Christopher Cousins
Excerpt:
AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine college students will soon have seamless access to hundreds of higher education courses in 35 states thanks to a new program to which the state has just been accepted.
The New England Board of Higher Education announced Monday that Maine has been accepted to the New England State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (N-SARA). Here are the details:
What is SARA?
SARA is a 36-state coalition through which colleges and universities, as well as individual students, can access courses at institutions in other participating states. Reciprocally, Maine institutions also will be allowed to share their online offerings in other states in the coalition. Maine passed a law earlier this year to allow the state’s application to the coalition.
There are about 500 higher education institutions participating in the program nationally.
Also see:
General Information
Higher Education needs a new way for states to oversee the delivery of postsecondary distance education.
The current process is too varied among the states to assure consistent consumer protection, too cumbersome and expensive for institutions that seek to provide education across state borders, and too fragmented to support our country’s architecture for quality assurance in higher education — the quality assurance “triad” of accrediting agencies, the federal government, and the states.
A new, voluntary process of state oversight of distance education has been created to redress these problems. The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement is a voluntary agreement among its member states and U.S. territories that establishes comparable national standards for interstate offering of postsecondary distance-education courses and programs. It is intended to make it easier for students to take online courses offered by postsecondary institutions based in another state.
…
The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) establishes a state-level reciprocity process that will support the nation in its efforts to increase the educational attainment of its people by making state authorization:
- more efficient, effective, and uniform in regard to necessary and reasonable standards of practice that could span states;
- more effective in dealing with quality and integrity issues that have arisen in some online/ distance education offerings; and
- less costly for states and institutions and, thereby, the students they serve.
On 10/29/2015,
in changing business models, consortiums, cost of getting a degree, distance education, higher education, new business models, online learning, United States, universities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Florida Universities take system approach in addressing growth of online — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
Excerpt:
The Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida is putting final touches on a strategic plan for online education. The idea is to create a framework around which all 10 institutions in the system with online programs can pool their “collective talents and resources toward a common purpose” — helping Florida citizens earn credentials that will “improve their lives, lead to new discoveries and advanced Florida’s economy.” The plan was first begun a year ago when the board created a task force to examine how the state could better meet workforce needs through online education and increase effectiveness while reducing costs.
The goal of the “2025 Strategic Plan for Online Education” is intended to guide development and implementation of system policies and legislative budget requests related to online education with a focus on three primary elements: quality, access and affordability.
Also see:
- U Florida turns distance learning into searchable video on demand — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
Excerpt:
The University of Florida is rolling out technology from Sonic Foundry to record, store and manage distance learning courses, collaborative meetings and special events that occur via videoconference. The cloud-based Mediasite Join product can record any videoconference and make the content searchable, with no additional appliances or equipment required. Users invite Mediasite Join as a participant to a videoconference, and the technology then transcodes, indexes and publishes recorded calls to Mediasite alongside the institution’s other video assets.
On 04/08/2015,
in collaboration, consortiums, experimentation, higher education, innovation, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model — from educause.com by Kim Wilcox and Edward Ray
Excerpt:
The implied message is clear: We’d prefer not to talk about what isn’t working at the postsecondary level.
We’re in a competitive sector, and there is misplaced pressure on all higher education institutions to achieve top placement in U.S. News & World Report and other annual rankings, regardless of whether or not those rankings make any sense. We all feel significant pressure to make sure that our constituents—from board members to faculty to parents to legislators—are happy with the direction of the institution. And we also know that those constituents can be impatient in waiting for substantive change to produce positive results. Honest discourse on new initiatives that seem unproductive or in need of modification is likely to lead to unpleasant conversations that few of us would relish.
This is not the way to foster innovation and improvement in higher education. The best innovators in the world typically follow the mantra that failure is acceptable, helpful, and sometimes even necessary to ultimately achieving an objective. Many of the products we rely on today, from Post-it Notes to pacemakers, resulted from mistakes or failures in the search for other innovations. And just about any founder of a successful Silicon Valley start-up has a track record of ventures that failed.
Successful innovation requires experimentation and learning from failure.
…
At the University of California, Riverside, and Oregon State University, we are engaged in one effort to achieve these goals: the University Innovation Alliance. The UIA is a consortium of eleven major public research universities that are working together to identify new solutions to challenges found throughout the higher education community, and then to share information about failures and successful solutions among institutions.
From DSC:
Some images that are along these lines:
On 01/13/2014,
in business side of he, changing business models, colleges, consortiums, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, liberal arts, strategy, using teams,
by Daniel Christian
Cross-college collaboration — from insidehighered.com by Megan Rogers
Excerpt:
Faced with increasingly tight budgets, liberal arts colleges are looking to share resources to reduce costs and expand programs. But when the end goal is collaboration and not a merger, how should administrators decide which services are appropriate to share?
St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges, both liberal arts colleges in Northfield, Minn., have received a $1.4 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to increase collaboration over the next four years, but are drawing the line at sharing career services departments. And it’s hard to imagine the colleges collaborating in areas where they are competitors, such as fund-raising or admissions, St. Olaf President David Anderson said.
From DSC:
In order to survive within higher ed — and if things migrate to more of a team-based approach to content creation and delivery — I’ve often wondered if the following will occur:
- The necessity of sharing/pooling resources — especially those involving the creation and delivery of courses (i.e. one college contributes X courses, another contributes Y courses)
- The requirement to form partnerships for most institutions of higher education (vendors, especially), as the unbundling of higher education continues
- The need to form consortia
On 11/05/2013,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, analytics, animation, Artificial Intelligence / Agents / LLMs / and Related, attention, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, creativity, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, expectations, experimentation, flipping -- inverted learning, formal learning, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, IBM, ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, love of learning, machine-to-machine communications, marketplaces, media/film, Michigan, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multi-touch, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), neurodivergent/special needs, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, organizational change, pace of change, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, programming, real-world assignments, reinvent, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, STEAM-related, story, storytelling, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tablets, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, television, transmedia, trends, ubiquitous learning, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Learning from the Living [Class] Room — from Campus Technology by Daniel Christian and Mary Grush; with a huge thanks also going out to Mr. Steven Niedzielski (@Marketing4pt0) and to Mr. Sam Beckett (@SamJohnBeck) for their assistance and some of the graphics used in making these videos.
From DSC:
These 4 short videos explain what I’m trying to relay with a vision I’m entitling, Learning from the Living [Class] Room. I’ve been pulse checking a variety of areas for years now, and the pieces of this vision continue to come into fruition. This is what I see Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) morphing into (though there may be other directions/offshoots that they go in as well).
After watching these videos, I think you will see why I think we must move to a team–based approach.
(It looks like the production folks for Campus Technology had to scale things way back in terms of video quality to insure an overall better performance for the digitally-based magazine.)
To watch these videos in a higher resolution, please use these links:
- What do you mean by “the living [class] room”?
- Why consider this now?
- What are some examples of apps and tech for “the living [class] room”?
- What skill sets will be needed to make “the living [class] room” a reality?
Alternatively, these videos can be found at:
.
On 10/06/2013,
in consortiums, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Microsoft, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, strategy, surviving, using teams, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Microsoft joins Degreed’s crusade to ‘jailbreak the degree’ – from gigaom.com by Ki Mae Heussner
Excerpt:
Degreed, a San Francisco startup taking on traditional degrees and diplomas with a digital credential that reflects lifelong learning, has recruited its first corporate partner to its corner.
This week the startup said it will launch a partnership with Microsoft Virtual Academy, the tech giant’s online IT training site, which will give students who complete the program’s classes a way to display their achievements on Degreed.
From DSC:
AT&T and Georgia Tech.
Google and edX.
Microsoft and Degreed.
IBM sending Watson to school and partnering with 1000+ universities (see here and here).
JP Morgan and University of Delaware (see this addendum from 10/7/13)
Is there a new trend forming here?
On 09/11/2013,
in business, business side of he, consortiums, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education reform, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, open courseware and systems, platforms, staying relevant, surviving, trends, using teams,
by Daniel Christian
EdX announces partnership with Google — from web.mit.edu; w/ thanks to Mr. John Shank for the Scoop on this
Google and edX to collaborate on an open-source learning platform and research, among other things.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
As part of the collaboration with Google, edX plans to build out and operate MOOC.org, a new website that will help educational institutions, businesses and teachers build and host online courses for a global audience. The site — slated to go live next year — will be powered by Open edX and built on Google infrastructure.
…
EdX, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Cambridge, is a nonprofit organization comprised of 28 leading global institutions, called the xConsortium. According to EdX, its aims are to transform online and on-campus learning through novel methodologies, gamelike experiences and research, among other things.
Also see:
.
Excerpt:
Today, Google will begin working with edX as a contributor to the open source platform, Open edX. We are taking our learnings from Course Builder and applying them to Open edX to further innovate on an open source MOOC platform. We look forward to contributing to edX’s new site, MOOC.org, a new service for online learning which will allow any academic institution, business and individual to create and host online courses.
Also see:
Also see:
From DSC:
Creating media-rich, professionally-done, well-designed, interactive materials can be expensive — especially if back-end analytics, programming, AI, etc. are called for. Such capital-intensive work may require the use of teams…of partnerships…of alliances…of consortia.
Once created though, such materials could be made available at a low cost, as the costs would be spread out on a large number of people/institutions — i.e. The Walmart of Education.
On 06/19/2013,
in consortiums, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, new business models,
by Daniel Christian
MOOC-Skeptical Provosts — from insidehighered.com by Ry Rivard
Excerpt:
The provosts of Big 10 universities and the University of Chicago are in high-level talks to create an online education network across their campuses, which collectively enroll more than 500,000 students a year.
And these provosts from some of America’s top research universities have concluded that they – not corporate entrepreneurs and investors — must drive online education efforts.
…
But the provosts are now questioning universities’ need to partner with external providers in the first place.
…
“The main thing for us is… how can the CIC schools be proactive in terms of innovation and learning?” he said. “How can we be of more benefit to students jointly?”
…
Right now, the high-level talks among administrators has yet to trickle down to faculty. Provost Adesida said the Illinois faculty will play a big role in deciding whatever comes next. “We don’t move without consulting with faculty,” Adesida said.
.
From DSC:
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think MOOCs are done baking yet…but…
- Funny how a little serious competition causes some eyes and ears to be open to change.
- Funny how Thrun and Koller/Ng had to leave traditional higher ed in order to develop Udacity and Coursera, respectively.
- Funny how when one’s peers finally move forward with something, then one thinks that now they need to move forward with that same thing.
- Funny how folks are suddenly interested in innovation when their wallets/enrollments/businesses are being impacted.
- Funny how higher ed wakes up from partaking in its own conversations/journals/publications/research when the true “customers” now have choices.
I wonder how much more innovation we might actually see from insider higher education if a big player does purchase Coursera…?
Addendums:
- The Academe-Academic Complex –– from HuffingtonPost.com by Peter Weddle
Excerpt:
Now, to be perfectly clear, a college education is absolutely essential for many jobs in a modern economy. It is not, however, sufficient for sustained or even initial employment — at least as that education is currently delivered. What’s missing? An equally rigorous education in the body of knowledge and set of skills required for effective career self-management. Why? Because for the past 75 years, America’s colleges and universities have been graduating career idiot savants. They’ve taught their students a whole lot about this or that field of study, but absolutely nothing about how to make a career in those fields.
…
From discovering one’s inherent talent to setting effective short and long goals, from dealing with the inevitable obstacles that arise in a career to ensuring one’s expertise stays at the state-of-the-art, there is more than enough to be taught, more than enough to be learned in a career self-management course of study, and it’s high time the academe-academic complex embraced it.
. - Mozilla’s debuts Open Badges to showcase out-of-school learning and skills — from edsurge.com
